Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 Shock 'n Awesome live launch coverage: all new weapons, locations and mechanics in Battle Royale

Fortnite's new bug-infested season, Shock 'n Awesome, is landing today. Creepy crawlies are spreading their purple goop all over the Battle Royale map, and you'll be fighting both them and other players if you want your victory crown.

We're getting new weapons (and some returning favorites), a new faction, fresh points of interest, and new boons, which boost your stats when you grab them. There's even a Halo collaboration, too.

Chapter 6 Season 4 has a lot going on, so stick with this page for live coverage as we discover it all.

Welcome to live coverage of the new Fortnite season

Morning everyone! I'm armed with a big flask of coffee and a good night of sleep, and for the next several hours I'll be diving into Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 Shock 'N Awesome, which launches today.

Servers are still down right now but they should be back before long. When they are, I’ll play as much as I can and post about it here—expect images of the new locations, video of the new weapons, and snap judgments about the season as a whole.

I'm excited by what I've seen so far. Epic has gone heavy on the PvE, which should help fill mid-round lulls, and I like that there are so many ways to get better loot: chests, hive sacs in bug nests, supply drops as you rank up, squashing mini-boss Queen bugs, and ransacking O.X.R. bunkers (O.X.R. is the big new faction this season).

The big question for me is, how good will the new O.X.R. Assault Rifle feel? Like most Fortnite players I lean heavily on my rifle and I'm wondering if it'll supplant the reliable Hammer AR, which is unvaulted for this season, as my go-to.

Come back throughout the day for regular updates.

Watch the Chapter 6 Season 4 trailer

The season's trailer came out yesterday, giving us our first look at the new weapons in action. You can see the new assault rifle—and the battle pass Halo skin—at 0:40, the new three-headed minigun at 0:50, and the orbital airstrike at 1:10 (we don't know exactly how that will work yet).

Some of what you'll see above won't arrive until later in the season: the Power Rangers blaster and the Megazord who slays the Queen bug at the end of the trailer aren't here at launch.

5 biggest changes this season

If you haven't been following the build-up for the new season, then here are the five biggest changes you need to know about.

Bugs have infested the map: You'll find hives, nests and egg sacs dotted around, as well as three Queen bugs. Defeat them for a mythic weapon and a medallion.

Rank up for better weapons: Just like in the previous season, Super, there's a rank system and you level up by killing bugs and other players. You start at O.X.R rank C, and every time you level up you'll get a Drop Pod of loot, as well as a boon that grants new abilities. At rank A you can enter bunkers to get exotic weapons.

Boons: Each round you'll earn boons that make you more powerful. One improves aiming down sights, one lets you sprint for longer, one increases magazine size for all weapons, one reveals future storm circles, and then one—the Super Soldier boon—is an all-rounder that improves as you rank up, eventually granting unlimited stamina, faster sprint, and reduced recoil.

New weapons: A new season means a new loot pool. We're getting a minigun, a shotgun, an assault rifle (I'm intrigued to see if it has some kind of first-person scope or not), a powerful revolver, and a laser-guided rocket launcher.

Four new points of interest on the map: Shown in the image below. The Hive is insect central, O.X.R HQ has lots of NPCs and an armory where you can buy weapons, and Ranger's Run has plenty of bugs and high-tier loot.

The full loot pool: Sentinel Pump stays, Bass Boost gloves go, Hammer AR returns

Here's every weapon and item you can get at launch this season, via Osirion on X.

I'm glad the Sentinel Pump—forever my favourite shotgun—is staying. In the battle of the assault rifles, it's the new O.X.R. Rifle against the fast-firing Fury AR and the Hammer AR, which has been unvaulted. The Hammer is always a strong pick, so I imagine I'll be carrying that or the new one, depending on how that feels.

And the FlowBerry Fizz is back, too. It's the fun, floaty healing item that turns down gravity temporarily, and we're also getting an exotic version that gives you the Slap effect (infinite stamina).

Proximity chat in Battle Royale?

The servers are still down, but data-miners are hard at work uncovering gems. This morning, the X accounts Loolo_WRLD and @Wensoing posted that proximity chat will arrive in Battle Royale soon, based on files they've seen.

Epic hasn't confirmed this, and we don't have any more information for the moment—when exactly it will arrive or how it will work. I imagine that if it were added, it would be off by default. I don't think I could take someone taunting me with a 'Be Humble' emote AND insulting my skills out loud after they've gunned me down.

When will Fortnite servers be back online?

I don't know, but it shouldn't be long.

They went down at 2am ET/7am BST, so four hours ago as I write this. They are usually back online within five hours for new seasons, but rarely they've taken longer.

As soon as they're live I'll bring you everything I can from the new season.

New OG season: Desert biome, a Viking village and Shockwave Grenades

It's not just the main Battle Royale mode that's getting an update: OG mode, which revisits Fortnite's past, enters Chapter 1 Season 5 today.

The map is transforming, spawning a desert biome and rifts all over, as well as three new POIs: the town of Paradise Palms (pictured above), the Lazy Links golf course, and a Viking Village near Greasy Grove. Here's a full picture of the new map, via the official Fortnite X account.

But as always, it's the old loot that the community is most nostalgic for. We're getting five items added at launch: the compact SMG, the heavy sniper rifle (a one-shot headshot), the double barrel shotgun, the Rift-To-Go, and the Shockwave Grenade, which is arguably Fortnite's best mobility item.

Later in the season, Epic will add the suppressed assault rifle, the Grappler, and the Port-A-Fortress.

And if you want to play OG in Expert mode—no bots, no skill-based matchmaking—you can do that in duos for build mode, or solo for Zero Build. While you're at it, read Morgan's Gripes Week piece on games that try to sneak bots into multiplayer matches. Well, this is awkward...

We're light on mobility this season

The previous season, Super, was rammed full of mobility items: we had the Bass Boost gloves, Shockwave Grenades, dash sprites, the Surf Cube, Myst Form, and a grappler. Most of them are cut for the start of Season 4, which might make both pressuring enemies and escaping fights more difficult.

Shockwave Grenades are staying and, I'd suggest, should be your go-to item. I'll be hunting them down as soon as the servers go live.

The other main combat mobility for this season is the Crash Pad Jr, which bounces you a short distance. It's less versatile than the Shockwave Grenades, but it'll get you out of a sticky spot.

The only other mobility item is the launch pad, which fully sends you skywards and deploys your glider. It's more for getting around the map than for combat.

The wild cards are the new boons and medallions, which you get from killing mini-boss Queen bugs. Two of the medallions—the Surge medallion and the Springleg medallion—will boost your movement, and levelling your Super Soldier Ranked boons via the O.X.R. ranks will eventually give you unlimited sprint. They could all be crucial when it comes to the final circle.

And it confirms to me that the Flowberry Fizz, which helps you jump higher, is going to be the meta healing item (and it combos brilliantly with the Crash Pad).

5 hours of downtime

A bit of a milestone: a note on Epic's website from early this morning had suggested server maintenance would last until around 12:00BST/07:00ET, and we're past that point now.

This is longer than most outages we've had this chapter, but it's hardly unprecedented. We've had eight-hour waits before—let's hope we don’t get that far.

A detailed breakdown of all the Battle Royale map changes

Kudos to X account Guille_GAG, who has made a brilliant thread of how the map is changing.

It shows just how much Epic is transforming the map for this season: alongside the bug infestation and new major POIs we've got plenty of new landmarks. If Buggy Slurpwaters has—as its name suggests—lots of healing slurp barrels, it could be a go-to landing spot (on that note, I'll be updating my best landing spots guide over the next week as soon as I've got to grips with the new season).

I like how most of the changes, including the Hive, which is ground zero for the new critters, are right at the centre of the map rather than on the periphery, which guarantees that they'll be crucial for most rounds.

A closer look at the new weapons—and what I hope they do

Yesterday's trailer showed us some of the new weapons in action. Let's look at three, starting with the Swarmstrike rocket launcher (above). From what we know so far, it appears that it won't be in the season at launch, but don't hold me to that. You guide it with a laser and it shoots a hail of seven relatively slow-moving rockets.

I imagine it's most effective at clearing bugs and destroying buildings, although I hope it isn't too powerful against builds (we've had plenty of items that needed nerfing because they could destroy any structure in one go).

Next, the O.X.R assault rifle.

Will it have a scope? Many players were annoyed that the previous season, Super, didn't have a rifle with sights to aim down—all the guns were third-person firing, which was disappointing after how strong the Holo Twister was in Chapter 6 Season 1.

The new rifle looks like it has a very small red-dot sight in the picture above, but we only see it firing in third person. I would, personally, love first-person aiming, although I imagine it'd make this a must-carry weapon, which could feel samey.

Finally, the Bug Blaster, which fires explosive plasma projectiles, or you can charge it for a more powerful attack.

Charging items almost never become meta because of their slow fire rate, so I'd love for the heavy attack to properly blow people away.

And it's live!

Servers are back online—here we go!

Stay on this page for regular updates, including clips of the new weapons in action, details on the new locations and how they work, and quick takes on how the season is shaping up.

First look at the Hive area

After a few "matchmaking errors" I got into my first game and dropped near the Hive, which is where the bug infestation is spreading from.

It was as busy as you'd expect. A pop-up message told me the "threat level" was high, and I was promptly wiped out by a player with a shotgun. I like the environment, though: it's colourful, there's lots of variation in height, and it looked like there were water jets to send you skywards if you needed to escape.

You can also see the big letter 'C' on the right hand side. That's the O.X.R. ranking, which you'll boost by killing bugs and enemies.

We go again!

The Swarmer bugs are weak—and potentially so is the new shotgun

The bugs you can see in the clip are the Swarmers: the most common type. They pop out of the nearby hive (the purple glowing mound), and they seem to have 36HP.

What I think happens is that, when players have collectively dealt enough damage to bugs at a single location (I'm at Ranger's Run), then the Queen will spawn, as you see at the end of the video.

I'm using the new Sweeper shotgun in the clip above. First impressions are that it'll be great against bugs, but not so good against players because it has a wide horizontal weapon spread. That means that you're likely to miss lots of pellets even if you have a player in the middle of your crosshairs.

But let's see: this is just a snap judgment, and maybe it deals lots of damage at higher rarities.

The full map, with lots of new icons

This is what the full map will look like when you start the new season.

You'll need to get your head around the new icons: the Queen colonies are the mini-bosses, and they're in the same place every game. If you defeat them you'll get a mythic weapon and a medallion.

There are two O.X.R. Armories each round. From what I've seen, one is always at the O.X.R. HQ, while the other moves around (here, it's at Canyon Crossing).

Infested outposts appear to move each round: go there to defeat bugs and find higher-tier loot.

Finally, you can see that two locations—Canyon Crossing and Supernova Academy—have gold names. I'm not quite sure what that signifies, but perhaps it's where you find the O.X.R. Bunkers, which you can unlock once you reach rank A and get exotic weapons? Hopefully I'll find out soon.

Too. Much. Stuff.

Okay, there is a lot to get to grips with in this new season: I've played three rounds and already my head is spinning.

It feels like there are six things drawing my attention in any moment, each one promising higher-tier loot.

And that's a good thing! It feels like Epic has tried to eliminate those mid-game lulls by giving you more to do than you can possibly manage.

Let's start with an infested outpost, which I cleared in my last match.

The idea is that you're protecting an NPC outpost—from what I can gather, there are set points on the map where this event can happen.

When 20 bugs die, four drop pods fall from the sky, each stuffed with solid loot and boons to buff your stats. (And by the way I was wrong earlier when I said the weakest critters, the Swarmers, have 36HP—it's just that they die in one shot).

I'm currently solo right now and I feel like clearing one outpost would set me up for an entire match: I got multiple purple weapons from this outpost, including the new rocket launcher.

And that launcher isn't laser guided and doesn't appear to launch multiple projectiles as it did in the trailer—just take a look at the clip below.

New assault rifle feels strong without being overpowering

Assault rifles are the backbone of Battle Royale, and I was curious how the new one—the O.X.R. AR—would feel. Would it have a first-person scope? Would it be as good as the Spire Rifle?

The answer is no to both.

You can only aim this in third-person, like the Spire rifle.

But it's not quite as strong as last season's AR. It's in same mold—a relatively slow-firing, low recoil, accurate assault rifle—but it deals a touch less damage than the Spire, and has a much smaller magazine, at 21 bullets.

In the clip above, you can see that it deals 29 damage with a body shot, and 51 with a headshot. That's at range, with a green-rarity weapon.

I still think it will still be a versatile mid-range weapon, but I'm not sure it'll emerge as the stand-out gun of the season, especially because the alternative is the the strong Hammer AR.

Here are the full stats of the base weapon.

Capture the flag

Two capture points will spawn per round of Battle Royale, which isn't something I'd expected before the season launched.

They're marked by red flags on the map, and all you need to do is stay in the vicinity of the flagpole as it slowly rises.

Once it gets to the top, it'll drop loot and you'll gain a chunk of O.X.R. rank—I get enough here to rank up, which also earns me a drop pod (my screen is purple because I'm standing in the storm).

It's yet another way of getting high-end loot. As I said below, it feels like this season is bursting with things to do, and ways to rank up, but perhaps that's just because everything is new and fresh.

I stand corrected: the rocket launcher is definitely laser-guided

I just had my first properly long match, getting down the final two before getting blasted by a mythic Sweeper shotgun (although I still maintain the Sentinel Pump is a better option).

I've realised a few things: first, I was wrong about the rocket launcher not being laser-guided. It is, and it does fire multiple rockets at once, if you aim with your right-click first. If you hip fire, you have no laser.

In 1v1 firefights it's not going to be much use—I got into a long-distance fight with an enemy and we both gave up and pulled out our rifles after a couple of flurries—but it's really powerful against vehicles and I can see it working brilliantly in team-based build mode where you need to chew through layers of wood at once.

The new revolver is sneaky good

Another thing I've realised: the Wrecker revolver might end up being my favorite weapon this season. It's essentially a shotgun that fires fast, has a big magazine, and deals up to 100 damage per shot.

I got three kills with it in my last round—against, gasp, real players, not bots!—and it just feels great to use. I chased down an enemy and, at medium range, with not particularly good aim, landed two quick shots for 60 each to finish them off.

When you right click to aim in the bullet spread is absurdly small: you get a sense of it at the end of the clip below. See how tight the crosshair becomes?

As an add-on: watch the mini-map and you'll notice that when my opponent picks up two medallions, their location is marked precisely on the map, which feels like a way of stopping one person becoming too powerful in any given match.

Did I cut the video just before I got ambushed and whiffed all my shots? I couldn't possibly say.

O.X.R. HQ is gigantic, with lots of weapons to buy

A final thought before I drop into another round: the O.X.R. HQ feels like it could become one of my regular spots.

There are half a dozen NPCs there who you can pay to fully patch you up, and, more importantly, there's a giant armory that sells almost anything you'd want to buy—a gold Sentinel Pump, a Shockwave Launcher, high-level assault rifles, FlowBerry Fizz, and more—and it all costs either 600 or 800 gold.

I've landed here twice and both times I've had it to myself, which felt eerie. I imagine that when people build up their gold reserves, this could become a hot drop location.

Slaying the Queen is actually really hectic

Queen bugs spawn at three fixed spots on the map each round. I decided to drop straight on the one at Demon's Debris (the old Demon's Domain), and it's a surprisingly tough fight solo. Not because the Queen herself hits hard, but because it's a bit of a mosh pit of bugs and other players.

I finished her with the new minigun, which you can see above. So far I've enjoyed using it against the bugs, but not against players: it takes time to spin up, and I find it less versatile than the assault rifles, although I imagine it'll be viable in build modes, particularly in team-based build modes with one player carrying it.

Once you defeat the Queen at Demon's Debris she drops a medallion—very fun to use, I'll talk about it in the next post—and a mythic version of the O.X.R. assault rifle. I said earlier the gun felt strong, but not too strong, and having handled the mythic version, that still feels right. It's accurate and the damage is good, especially at higher rarities. But its small magazine holds it back, especially because the reload isn't rapid.

Double-jump medallion plus Flowberry Fizz equals pure joy

Now onto that Springleg medallion, which you get for defeating the Demon's Debris Queen (see the last post). It gives you a double jump as long as you have stamina, and makes you immune to fall damage.

It's a joy to use—when you combine it with the anti-gravity of the Flowberry Fizz you float, weightless, for miles in the air. Even though I mess up my sprint jump, I still land exactly where I wanted.

It's less useful when you don't sprint jump, as you can see at the end of the clip.

I haven't tried the other medallions, but this is the one I was most excited for and given there is less mobility this season, I can see it becoming part of the meta.

The other two medallions are the Surge medallion (at the Hive), which increases your movement speed and gives a burst when sliding, and the Carapace medallion (at Ranger's Ruin), which nets you 50 shield per kill, and passively regenerates 3 shield per second, up to a maximum of 50.

No, really, this revolver is actually amazing

I'll be wrapping up this live page shortly with a bunch of closing thoughts, but before I do that: can I reiterate what I said earlier, that this new revolver—basically a shotgun—is legit.

You'll see in the clip that it consistently does about 60 damage at medium range when scoped in, which is more than any other shotgun. It fires fast, and has a decent-size magazine.

Yes, I whiff one of my shots—in my defence, I thought the player was a bot, and it caught me off guard when they weren't—but then kill them with a 70-damage hipfire headshot.

I've always been a Sentinel Pump fan, but this is tempting as a finishing weapon, when you've already chipped away at an enemy with an assault rifle. I'll be updating my Fortnite best weapon guide as soon as I can, and right now I still don't have a clear sense of what's top-tier, but I think this revolver might be up there.

The field for best assault rifle is wide open

In most Fortnite seasons, one assault rifle emerges as clearly the best, and basically becomes everyone's primary weapon.

Having played for the best part of five hours with the new season, I think it might be different this time.

The O.X.R. rifle is strong at longer ranges, but limited by its smaller magazine. The Hammer is a good all-rounder but falls off beyond mid-range, while the Fury shreds up close but is less versatile.

It might ultimately come down to two things: first, what range do you like to play at? And second, what rarity weapon can you find? I think the mythic O.X.R. rifle might end up trumping the others, but I need to play more before I fully decide.

Closing thoughts: an overwhelming start to the season

Alas, my flask of coffee is long gone, and it's time for me to sign off, but here are some quickfire closing thoughts on the start of Chapter 6 Season 4.

1. There is an overwhelming amount to do. Bite it off in chunks. It'll take me a good week or more to feel comfortable in this new, busier map.

2. Visiting bug-infested spots isn't essential, but it's where all the good loot is. Throw yourself into Queen fights and outpost battles, and get to know how they both work.

3. Mobility is at a premium: stock up on Shockwave Grenades whenever you can. I have a feeling the double-jump medallion is going to be one of the game's best items.

4. For builds, experiment with the weapon pool: there are no hugely standout weapons for 1v1 firefights, but I think the minigun and the rocket launcher—both easy to find—will be essential in build fights, particularly if you're playing in teams.

5. Always, always, shower yourself in Flowberry Fizz.

I'll bring you more Fortnite coverage of the season on the site soon, including a weapons tier list and a guide to the best drop spots.

Take care and thanks for reading!

A very brief day one recap

US EIC Tyler Wilde popping in here from a time zone in which it's still daylight for a very brief check-in on how players are getting on with the season so far. The word on the subreddit and social media sites is:

• This season rules
• This season sucks
• Everyone's too sweaty at the start of the new season

The biggest topic of conversation may be the revolver-shotgun Sam discusses a few posts down. The consensus so far appears to be that it is definitely OP, but so much fun it'd be a shame to nerf it.